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Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Governor Pawlenty of Tax Increases Tries to Backtrack

From the comments to David Strom's ripping of Tim Pawlenty:

# PolicyGuy Says:August 22nd, 2006 at 4:45 pm

Someone on Gov. Pawlenty’s staff must read blogs, for even this writer with a tiny readership (for his blog at least) got a letter from the re-election campaign. For the benefit of anyone reading this thread who didn't get the letter, here it is:

—————–Friends,I wanted to make sure you saw the clarification that ran today in the Star Tribune regarding a quote in Saturday's paper that was attributed to the Governor.

Please note that the Governor was not declaring that the "era of small government is over", but simply discussing points made in an article by that title.

If you have questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me.

We look forward to working with you to keep taxes down and hold government accountable for four more years.

"The era of small government is over," Pawlenty said in an interview with the Star Tribune. "I'm a market person, but there are certain circumstances where you've got to have government put up the guardrails or bust up entrenched interests before they become too powerful ... Government has to be more proactive, more aggressive."

When Pawlenty says "I'm a market person, but ...," it sure doesn't sound like he is giving a detached analysis of a piece of punditry.

For the record, here's a link to a blog entry (not mine) that Mr. Krueger is referring to:

Here's what the clarification said:

An article on Page B1 Saturday quoted Gov. Tim Pawlenty saying "The era of small government is over," a comment he made in reference to a point made in a 2004 column by New York Times columnist David Brooks. Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said Monday that Pawlenty's record shows he is not a supporter of "big government" and that he was "simply talking about the need for government to be more effective and active."